Our Anchor Holds

My name is Kaila Munkwitz and I am a deputy with an agency in the greater NWNC area. If you or your loved ones are involved in Law Enforcement, you’ll understand that for policy reasons, I can’t really state what agency I work for directly. But I am sure if you do a little digging, you’ll figure it out. 

I went to work on 9/27, the day Hurricane Helene decimated parts of my community.

I’ve been contemplating a lot this last week…

Reflecting on our humanity. Our humility, vulnerability, resilience, outrage, powerlessness.

The Saturday following the storm I went on a welfare check in an area that was decimated by the Swannanoa River. The houses that used to stand tall were scattered in pieces across what I can only describe as the new riverbed.

I took a step onto the mud, wondering how far I could get across the hidden street. I sank not 5 feet in from the nearest hard ground.

I looked up and saw a vehicle propped up on some bushes in the middle of the scene. Trees were fallen haphazardly, leaning on debris from fences, roofs, carports. Letting its weight crush the everyday comforts I take for granted.

I turned to my right and saw a boat and a boat trailer standing vertically in between two trees.


The house I was supposed to be looking for was gone. Mud and trees and shrubbery were the only things left standing. Where was the person, the man, the neighbor, son, brother, friend, I was supposed to check on… who could know?

I shook my head as I turned around and walked to my patrol car, defeated. It wasn’t even 24 hours after Hurricane Helene wrought havoc over my home. And I knew I’d likely see many more scenes like this one. I’d come up with nothing to tell their loved ones that have called into my agency to look for them.

I looked up and saw a female walking towards me. She smiled and asked if I was okay. I told her why I was out there, who I was looking for. She nodded and said, “I am looking for him too.” This person was her neighbor.

“The last time I saw him, he was standing on his roof with his dog, floating away on the river.” I looked back at the mud covering what seemed to be everything… “I’ve been looking for him” she said. And at that I turned back to her. “I’ve been walking up and down the river for miles. I’m hoping I can find his dog and maybe then I will find him.” I knew what she meant. That she was hoping to find his dog’s body, and maybe they’d be together.

The thought brought tears to my eyes. To have someone, a neighbor, care enough about this man. To know that she would most likely find him dead and continued to search anyway… that is a form of love that is rarely witness.

I looked back at the last house that was still standing, determined to not cry in front of this woman who just lost her friend, who didn’t have power, who only had four bottles of water to her name.

She gave me a detailed description of her friend and asked if I found him, that I would come and tell her since she had no cell phone service. I nodded and said of course.

I told the woman that I only had two bottles of water in my vehicle, and asked if she would like them. She refused and said “no, give it to someone who really needs it”. I told her I would be picking up more water on my way to my next call, and that it would make me feel better if she just took the little water I had.

She said “I’ll leave it for my cat, he’s been drinking out of the toilet since Friday, the poor guy. I haven’t gone to the bathroom in there so he would have enough drinking water.” I smiled and handed over the water. I told her to call us if she needed us and left.

I turned the corner and cried in my patrol vehicle. I later scolded myself for letting my emotions get the best of me, for nearly crying in front of a woman who had lost more than I did in this storm.

Later that night I spoke with a coworker who described a similar situation. An elderly man had come to check up on his church to make sure there was no damage and no one was looting inside. My coworker described the interaction.

He told the old man he was also there to check on the church, and the man sang his praise. My coworker asked the man if he needed anything. Any water? Any food? The man somberly said “no, I am okay. ”.. he paused and looked up at my coworker with tears in his eyes “I lost my wife two weeks ago, so I don’t really know what to do”.

My coworker, a young deputy, almost 2 years on patrol had already seen so much violence and loss. He’s already been hardened, jaded even. But he confided in me that he cried with that old man.

Shared grief, I have learned, is one of the most profound things we as humans can do. We are all mourning the loss of loved ones, even if they aren’t related to us, even if we don’t know them from Adam. I feel the heaviness this storm has wrought upon my community.

At times it makes me feel helpless. But tonight at work I called someone and told them their loved ones were okay after a welfare check. They were without power. They were without water. But they had their lives. And I shared the relief that person felt. I reveled in the joy of not having to deliver world ending news.

I sit here writing this out, at the end of my 9th straight night working and am met with the stark realization that this will be my life for the foreseeable future. Work will now be spent telling people if their loved ones are dead or not. It will be spent pulling people off one another in violent domestics, because people do awful things when they don’t have their basic needs met. Work will consist of the worst side of our humanity until things go back to “normal”.

As I head to my first night off since Helene hit, I steal myself in preparation for what’s to come. But I will always remember to find the bright spots in these dark times. Jokes shared between coworkers, my K9 doing something silly (which usually means she’s not listening to me), a friend doing my dishes for me because I’m too exhausted to do anything else besides work and sleep.

It goes deeper than this. My faith in humanity is restored only when times seem bleakest. A church donated shower stations to their community out of their own pocket. Anywhere I go, I am asked if I need anything, if I’m hungry or thirsty. Neighbors are keeping an eye on the houses in their neighborhood, looking out for one another. They’re sharing camp stoves, water, food, power, washers and dryers, internet passwords.

A fire chief in my area lost his life trying to save his neighbors during a landslide. A deputy in the county bordering mine sacrificed herself at the chance of saving two people drowning in their car. These stories are endless and heartbreaking. But they show the best of us, how selfless and truly loving we can be.

On that Saturday night after the storm, I drove two deputies that came to assist a security site near the landslide. We saw what looked like a porch sitting on the side of the road. There were no houses in sight that it could have belonged.


At the start of my shift a few days later I drove up the same road and saw the same porch. And it nearly brought me to tears in the daylight.

The locals wrote a message on the wood... Maybe it was to the first responders assisting with recoveries. Maybe it was to themselves, their community, or hell maybe even the world.

It will serve as a reminder of those who lost everything, and the community that united to get through this horrific disaster. And it will be there to remind me of those who sacrificed everything in the name of love. It will be an honor to carry them with me.

So, if you have read this far, I will do something I rarely do. I would like to ask for your help.

Consider donating to an organization in the Northwestern North Carolina area. Foster an animal. Come here and help bring supplies to people who aren’t mobile. Take a page out of the stories I have shared and act out of love. Not because you know me or my community. But because you are human, and in that we will share our love, our joy, and maybe the burden of this grief won’t feel so soul crushing.

My community will bounce back, this I am sure of. I know this from the words they wrote on the rubble I see everyday.

Below are some organizations that are in the area and actively helping where donations can be made. 

https://nc211.org/supply-collections-locations-and-supply-distribution-locations-helene-relief/

https://www.heartswithhands.org

https://www.samaritanspurse.org/article/pray-for-those-in-helenes-path/

https://www.operation-airdrop.com/hurricane-helene